Fire
by TheBigEscape
Summary: "Suddenly, the world tasted like ashes in his mouth. He had never been this cold, couldn't even register the searing heat of the fire that had taken her away. He could put arrows in people, slay monsters for her, but this fire was not tangible. He couldn't kick it, he couldn't stab it, he couldn't put an arrow through its heart." (Sounds like it, but NO character death, promise!)
1. Chapter 1

_Hello everyone!_

_So instead of delivering inspiration for my multi-chapter fic _The Wedding Slasher_, the muse planted this in my head and I couldn't get rid of it. Two fairly short chapters, there might be a third at some point._

_Haven't situated this story anywhere in particular, time-wise, it can really work whenever you want it to take place. _

_Let me know about mistakes you see, please, so I can eradicate them – English is not my first language and I don't have a beta._

_Hope you enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: This is just for fun, I don't own anything._

**Fire**

Finally finding the door Felicity was supposed to use as escape route, Digg tried to open it, but the handle wouldn't even move an inch, clearly locked from the inside. It was a steel door that opened to the outside, so there was no kicking it in either. His stomach lurched, picturing their partner trapped behind it, in panic. He turned back to face Oliver, who was standing a few feet away, recovering from another coughing fit. Shock and fear were clearly painted across the features of his friend, who just stood there, displaying an extremely uncharacteristic passivity. John was about to speak when the explosion threw both men to the ground and the world around them seemed to stop for a little while.

When he came to, it couldn't have been more than a few seconds later, the world was eerily silent, his hearing gone after the ear-shattering bang. He could see that the steel door had been blown off its hinges, the inferno's fiery tongues angrily licking its edges. His partner's sooty face was contorted in what looked like a silent scream, but even though Diggle couldn't hear it, he was sure that Oliver's scream was loud and raw and desperate.

This couldn't be. It was unthinkable that they should lose one of their team. _Felicity_.

* * *

_Suddenly, the world tasted like ashes in his mouth. He had never been this cold, couldn't even register the searing heat of the fire that had taken her away. His legs were leaden, his mind blank. He could put arrows in people, slay monsters for her, to keep her safe, but this fire was not tangible. He couldn't kick it, he couldn't stab it, he couldn't put an arrow through its heart. _

_He screamed his lungs out, but he couldn't even hear it. Maybe the screaming was just in his head? There was nothing but the ringing in his ears; no movement but the fire, mocking him, continuing as if it hadn't just brought his world to a standstill._

_Purgatory, he thought. This is it. This is where he would spend the rest of his life. _

_**60 seconds earlier….**_

She kept running, thanking Mother Nature for the adrenaline that was fueling her body now, allowing her to run faster than she ever had. Finally making it to the end of the long hallway, she turned right and pushed open the door marked 'Only Use in Case of Emergency'. "I guess this qualifies as an emergency," she thought to herself. The cold night air filled her lungs and she had never been this happy to see the sky.

Although she was expecting it, the immensity of the explosion still caught Felicity off guard. It hurled her forward vehemently and she landed on the pavement a few feet away, her arms instinctively wrapped around her head to brace for the impact and absorb the shock as much as possible. The blast had burst all the windows on the upper floors, and splinters of glass were raining down on her, as she lay on the ground. Her arms were scraped, her knees bloody and she suspected she had one or two severely bruised rips and a concussion – but the worst was the ringing in her ears; just ringing, no other sounds discernible anymore. The rational part of her brain helped her suppress the panic that threatened to spread. It was probably just temporary and she would get her hearing back soon. Certainly not to this extent, but the landmine on Lian Yu had had a similar effect.

Oliver. Oliver and John. The thought of them gave her the strength to force herself up in a sitting position, slowly raising herself onto very shaky legs, hissing in pain when she put weight onto her right leg. Apparently, she had sprained her ankle, which hurt – but not as much as seeing her severely damaged tablet on the ground, a few feet away. Limping over to pick it up, she hoped that she would be able to salvage the data from it, or otherwise all of this would've been for nothing.

The fear for the well-being of her two best friends had settled on her chest as an almost unbearable weight and she had trouble breathing, feeling as if someone was choking her. She had to find them, and fast, before police and firefighters would reach the scene. From the blueprints she had studied she knew she was at the east side of the warehouse now and had to turn left to get to the north side, where Oliver and Digg would be if they had made it out of there. "No, not if," she admonished herself. "They did. They made it out. They must've." She angrily wiped away a tear that had snuck out of the corner of her eye. She was being ridiculous.

While she slowly stumbled forward, holding on to the wall to support her as her stupid legs were not exactly willing to listen to the commands they were receiving from her brain, she replayed the mission over in her head, but came to the conclusion that there was nothing they could've done differently.

The entry into the (allegedly abandoned) factory had been easy enough. It had taken Felicity under 30 seconds to disable the security system. They had made their way over to the office where she set to work to hack into a self-contained computer network to access information which, so they hoped, would help them bring down a major human trafficking operation. Oliver was by her side, Diggle had split earlier to clear the rest of the floor. The infrared satellite images Felicity had accessed shortly before they entered ("borrowed from the NSA" was her way of putting it) had showed that no one else was inside.

But there was – they must've been in the basement, that's the only thing that made sense, Felicity concluded later. Their heat signatures would not have been picked up by the satellite. The blueprints hadn't even showed a basement, but maybe that's why the guys had picked this place for their criminal operation in the first place. Equipped with machine guns, they had John cornered. Oliver hadn't wanted to leave her side, but Felicity had ensured him that she would be alright for a couple of minutes and there was really no way that Diggle could get out of this by himself. So he went.

As they were outnumbered, the fight had forced her two partners to fall back from the ground floor down a staircase and they had ended up in said basement, which turned out to be a meth lab. That's when the fire had started. Unfortunately, their attackers hadn't paid attention in their High School chemistry classes and thought it would be a good idea to fire their guns in a lab that was brimming with a plethora of highly flammable chemicals.

Felicity had yelled, "GET OUT OF THERE! I'll take the back exit," knowing that there was no way that they could make their way up three floors to her before the fire spread and incinerated the two big cooling tanks on the ground floor. Luckily, those _had_ been in the blueprints of the former refinery. Of course, Oliver had started to argue, which she cut short with an "Oliver, NOW!" – her loud voice infused by fear when she heard him and John starting to cough from the mixture of chemical fumes, smoke, and lack of oxygen in the basement.

Knowing that the fire had started in a different part of the building, Felicity allowed herself another 90 seconds to wait for the download to finish, mentally propelling it on with "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" She couldn't bear the thought that this mission had been for nothing – and for more young girls to be trafficked abroad by these monsters. When the download was finished, she told Oliver and John that she was making her way to the exit now, which was answered by "Hurry!" from John and a relieved "We'll meet you at the back door, we're close to the front exit," from Oliver. Disconnecting her tablet, she ran.

When Felicity had reached the ground floor back exit, which they had designated their main escape route, it was barred with a large padlock. "It's locked!" She shouted, panic slowly rising in her chest. Rattling the handle, she realized there was no way out here. Why could it not have been an electronic lock? She would've been out in seconds. "Felicity? FELICITY!" was the only thing she could hear over the comms before they cut out and all that remained was static. Oliver had sounded as if he was freaking out. A sentiment she could relate to – but decided it had to wait until she had found another way out. Glad that she had studied the blueprints rather carefully, she knew there was another exit at the east side of the building, all she had to do was follow the hallway to her right and hope the whole building didn't explode before she made it to the end of it.

**Thanks for reading! Please leave a review – reading those makes my day!**

**I'll post the next chapter fairly soon, probably tomorrow after I've had some time to proofread.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Fire – Chapter 2**

_**100 seconds earlier…**_

If the situation had not been this critical, Diggle would've laughed at the way Felicity had ordered them to leave the building immediately. She was the only one to speak to the Arrow this way – and get away with it. Of course Oliver hadn't wanted to listen, but once they'd made it up the stairs from the basement, the fire had already spread across the ground floor and cut them off from the rest of the building. The only way to go was to the front exit, which, fortunately, was rather close. Still Oliver hesitated and resisted Digg's tugging of his arm, probably calculating the risk of trying to make it across the burning building to Felicity.

"Trust her to get out of this by herself, Oliver", John had shouted at his friend, in-between coughs, hoping his words would carry against the roaring of the fire. He didn't want to use his comm unit because Felicity would've heard it and he didn't want to alarm her any further – she should only concentrate on getting out and to safety. "She's close to an exit. It was our main escape route. She knows the way! We went over it a dozen times." When the first supporting beam came crashing down, along with part of the ceiling, Oliver balled his fists, probably realizing that there wasn't anything he could do anymore. He accepted it but still hated the decision he had to make.

It was getting harder and harder for them to breathe, their eyes watering and lungs burning. They could hear Felicity's voice in their ears, informing them that she had finished the download and was making her way down the stairs to the exit now. Stubborn woman – had to finish the download before getting a move on! Still, Diggle was utterly relieved to hear she was alright, so he asked her to hurry and Oliver added that they would come and meet her at the building's north side.

The fumes from the chemicals, mixed up with the smoke of the fire, had made them cough violently and they had to stop at a safe distance from the building for a few moments to catch their breaths. Both of them were wiping away tears from their irritated and burning eyes, their visions blurry. John's blood froze in his veins when he heard Felicity's voice a few moments later, completely panicked. "It's locked!" These words put the fear of God in him, and he could tell from looking at Oliver's face that he was not faring any better. They shouted her name in unison, as if it could unlock the door for her. They exchanged looks, completely petrified as they realized the comms had gone dead. Oliver immediately sprang into action, John just a split second after him, and they turned right and ran as quickly as their damaged lungs would allow to the north exit via the west alleyway.

Finally finding the door Felicity was supposed to use, Digg tried to open it, but the handle wouldn't even move an inch, clearly locked from the inside. It was a steel door that opened to the outside, so there was no kicking it in either. His stomach lurched, picturing their partner trapped behind it, in panic. He turned back to face Oliver, who was standing a few feet away, recovering from another coughing fit. Shock and fear were clearly painted across the features of his friend, who just stood there, displaying an extremely uncharacteristic passivity. John was about to speak – to tell Oliver that she might've found another way out, needing his friend to keep it together for a little while longer –, when the explosion threw both men to the ground and the world around them seemed to stop for a little while.

During their hours and hours of sparring they had rehearsed how to fall and their bodies reacted automatically so as to minimize the impact. Digg recovered quickly, having been around his fair share of explosions from land mines and bombs during his time in the military. The tell-tale ringing in his ears told him that he would have to get by without this particular sense for a bit, but he wasn't too worried, knowing that it would only last a couple of minutes. Still, it was eerie, this silence. He sat up, quickly taking an inventory and deciding that he was fine except for maybe a concussion.

He turned his attention to the steel door and saw that it had been blown off its hinges, the inferno's fiery tongues angrily licking its edges. Scanning his immediate surroundings, he saw Oliver slightly behind him and his heart broke for his friend. His partner's sooty face was contorted in what looked like a silent scream, but even though Diggle couldn't hear it, he was sure that Oliver's scream was loud and raw and desperate.

This couldn't be. It was unthinkable that they should lose one of their team. _Felicity_. Harnessing the last reserves of energy, John forced himself to suppress his own fear. There was still hope, maybe she got out somehow. He had to cling to that faint possibility, both for his sake and for Oliver's.

Suddenly, Oliver got up and started to run towards the burning building. Diggle forced his protesting limbs to run after him, managing to grab his friend's shoulders to hold him back. The heat of the fire was searing hot on his face, even from this distance. Oliver, however, was pushing further onwards and Diggle had to wrap his arms around his friend's torso to keep him from moving closer to the hungry flames, with all his strength and determination. It took a few more seconds of him struggling against the iron grip before John could feel Oliver go limp, the realization dawning on him that there was nothing he could do anymore. Diggle decided that it was safe to let go of him now, and he sacked to his knees, his mouth still open wide in a silent scream, his face contorted in pain.

He had never seen Oliver like this. Utter desolation in his eyes, kneeling there, looking at the building as if he was just witnessing his whole life turn to ashes. But Diggle knew that it was probably worse than that. Oliver would rather die himself than see someone he loved hurt – or die. He also knew that Felicity was the person his partner loved most in this world, even though he would never admit it. His heart went out to the younger man, even while his own pain spread across his chest, as if a hand was slowly crushing is heart in an iron grip. Desperation settled on his shoulders and made his body feel so heavy that all thought he'd manage to do was sit down on the ground and never move again. Unfortunately, they didn't have the luxury of giving in to their pain at this point, they were completely exposed and had to make a run for it before the authorities would show up. He had to get his friend back into a state where he was willing to move – but how, he had no idea.

When his eyes caught some movement to their left, his heart skipped a beat. He saw a figure approaching through the screen of smoke that had formed in front of the door, where the fire was looking for an outlet, reaching for the heavens like a living creature. His vision still blurry, he couldn't make out any details and while there was a spark of hope stirring in his chest, he took a fighting stance in case this was not friend but foe.

It was a petite frame and it only took him a few more seconds to realize that this was Felicity making her way over to them. She stumbled a few times, had probably injured herself. He shouted Oliver's name, but of course his friend could not hear him. Shaking his shoulder, John pointed into the direction of the figure that was now just about thirty feet away. But seeing her stumble and steady herself against the wall that enclosed the factory complex, Digg rushed over to her – leaving a motionless Oliver kneeling on the ground. She wouldn't be able to hear him, so he gave her the once-over to check for any major wounds. Not finding any, he enveloped her in a bear hug, pouring all his relief and joy into the embrace.

He reluctantly released her when she tugged at his arm and pointed to Oliver, a questioning look in her eyes. Luckily, they had perfected wordless conversations during their long nights of crime fighting as a tightly knit team. "Is he hurt?" her eyes asked. It was the obvious assumption, considering he was on his knees, staring at the door that was still spitting out smoke and fire, his face contorted in pain. Diggle shook his head and smiled reassuringly. His hearing was already adjusting, sounds of the environment slowly filtering through the ringing. He could hear the approach of sirens in the distance. Voicing the word "Police," Felicity seemed to be able to read the meaning from his lips and quickly nodded. They had to get out of there, and quick.

* * *

John offered her his arm to support her weight and together they made their way over to Oliver. They moved into his line of sight, yet he didn't react to seeing them at all, just kept staring right through them, as if they weren't there at all – or as if the fire was just more interesting to watch. Felicity's breath caught when she saw his face up close, confusion in her eyes; a grimace, despair deeply etched into every beautiful line. What was wrong with him? Diggle had signaled that Oliver was okay, but surely he must be in pain? There were no visible wounds apart from a few scrapes and bruises; she couldn't make sense of it. Diggle touched her shoulder and she knew she didn't have time to figure this out, it had to wait. She reached down to take Oliver's hand, tugging it to signal they had to make a run for it if they wanted to keep the Arrow out of all of this. Only then – only when she touched his skin – his eyes shot up to hers.

Everything up to this point seemed to have happened in slow motion. But once shock, then recognition had spread across Oliver's face, quickly followed suit by gut-wrenching relief, Felicity managed to pull him to his feet. Following Diggle, who had already jogged up to the north-east corner of the warehouse and signaled that the coast was clear, Felicity kept a firm hold of Oliver's hand. She led him away from the building.

* * *

_Still unaware of his surroundings his whole world just existed in her touch, in her warm hand. His body, ice-cold before, even in the face of the roaring fire, started to feel alive again._

_He didn't care whether she was real or whether she was just a figment of his imagination. Wherever she was, that's where he wanted to be. Even if that meant joining her on the other side, joining her in death._

**AN: UUUUGH, quite angsty, I know. Hope you still liked it. The muse just wouldn't cough up anything fluffy! **

**Reviews are golden!**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Thanks to everyone who reviewed, followed & favorited - you guys are the best!**_

**Fire – Chapter 3**

His hand slowly warmed up to her touch – it had been ice-cold when first she had taken it. She led him away from the inferno and he followed her willingly. Yet, the Oliver she knew would've taken the lead on their escape, or would at least watch their surroundings, as alert as possible even with affected senses, so she was more than a little worried. Whenever she turned around to him, his eyes were cast down to their conjoined hands. Oliver's face was blank now, the grimace of pain gone. Still, his whole body radiated despondency and she had never seen him look so much like a little, forlorn boy.

Luckily, they were running from the police, who wouldn't shoot them on sight, and not from the human traffickers, who would most likely do exactly that. It was highly improbable, though, that any of them had made it out of the building, Felicity reckoned. Diggle was always a few steps ahead of them, making sure there were no run-ins with the authorities on their path ahead. He glanced around corners and signaled Felicity to proceed whenever the coast was clear.

The progress was slow with her injured ankle and ribs; they had to stop every couple of hundred meters for her to recover from the pain, and for her two partners to force more oxygen into their lungs by taking deep, steady breaths. "They should both be in hospital beds with oxygen masks to fight the smoke poisoning," she thought to herself wearily. Unfortunately, that would have to wait (not that either of them would ever listen to her anyway and _actually_ go to a hospital).

* * *

After a couple of minutes of this painstakingly slow progress through dark alleyways, past stinking dumpsters and scurrying rats, Diggle signaled for Felicity and Oliver to halt. Up ahead were two policemen in uniform, canvassing the area. They couldn't go back, as that would lead them closer again to where a host of firemen was bound to be, trying to control the blaze. Finding their way forward blocked like this, Diggle considered the options. There was a wire mesh fence to their right. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be an obstacle for him or Oliver. But he doubted that the younger man was in a position to climb anything tonight – and Felicity certainly wasn't, with her injuries.

When John felt the first raindrops hit his face, he made the quick decision to usher Felicity and Oliver into an abandoned warehouse off the alley. There was no door anymore and most of the windows were broken, but the building would offer them some shelter and help them stay undetected until the cops had cleared out of the area. They would have to wait it out. With his hearing still heavily impacted, his vision blurry in the almost pitch-black night, there was no way he was risking their safety any further by poking along alleyways in what had developed into a torrential rain. They would need to rest and regroup for a couple of hours, making their way out of the warehouse district nearer dawn. At least the rain was going to help quench the fire more quickly.

* * *

_Don't let go. You can't ever let go. _

_His mind still in a haze, Oliver's whole world just existed in her touch, in her warm hand. His body, ice-cold before, even in the face of the roaring fire, slowly started to feel warm, feel alive again. _

_There was a rational part of him that wanted to call him back into reality, told him that he had to face it eventually, but he wasn't willing to follow that internal voice yet. He was afraid that embracing reality would mean accepting truths he wasn't ready to face yet. _

_So he kept hiding in the shadows of his mind. Her hand became his fetish, dissociated from both her body and his – the only thing real. _

* * *

Felicity waited for Oliver, leaning against the door frame of the abandoned warehouse Diggle had signaled them to enter. "At least he will be able to rest here for a bit," she thought to herself, watching him recover from another coughing fit. Once inside, John signaled her that he was going to go explore the building, make sure they were alone. He would probably try to find a higher vantage point to keep watch over the surrounding alleys. Felicity had spent enough time in the Arrow Cave to have picked up quite a good understanding of tactics in the field – and luckily, they were all experts at communicating without words by now, which came in particularly handy at a time like this.

She led Oliver over to a supporting pillar at the back of the large room they found themselves in, signaling him to sit down. He leaned his weary body against the concrete and slid down, slowly. Since she remained standing, and his arm was too heavy for her to hold up with the intense pain in her ribs, she let go of his hand after a couple of seconds. The instant they lost physical contact, Oliver's eyes shot upwards, searching for hers – the first kind of situational awareness he had shown since she found her partners after the explosion. His gaze locked on hers, and it almost took her breath away.

There was a little boy looking up at her, not the strong, grown man who was trying to save the city single-handedly every night. He looked so broken; the only explanation that made sense to her was that he must have had a horribly vivid flashback to the island – a traumatizing situation, maybe, that had involved fire. Some of the scars he sported on his torso could certainly be from burns, she mused. Felicity knew them quite well, after all, having spent many unobserved moments to study them as he was working out, wondering what awful things people had done to him.

His intense, uninterpretable gaze weighed on her, and she became aware of how exhausted her own body was. Breaking his stare, she decided to sit down next to him to rest for a little while. She fought through the pain as she carefully lowered her body to the ground, placing her broken tablet next to her on the floor. Her ankle ceased throbbing almost immediately, but the pain in her ribs, she realized, would be her constant companion for many days to come. She was just in the process of settling in and closing her eyes, her head resting against the pillar, when Oliver began to stir in the dark. This startled her a bit, considering he had been pretty much catatonic since they had left the burning warehouse behind.

He slipped his arm around her waist, the other underneath her bent knees and, before she knew it, he had pulled her in more closely to his side and lifted her legs over his outstretched ones. Too tired to respond to her partner seeking out physical proximity with more than mild surprise – really, the guy had never even initiated a hug before –, Felicity ruled this position to be far more comfortable than her previous one and decided to not overthink it. Not tonight, at least. She settled her head against Oliver's shoulder and enjoyed the warmth of both of his hands around her waist.

Most of the windows on the ground floor were broken, and the cold, damp night air had found its way inside with gusts of wind. Although their shelter was certainly warmer than outside, Felicity found herself shivering, which was probably also due to the decreasing adrenaline in her body. When Oliver unzipped his green leather jacket, it took her a moment to understand what he was doing. He gently pushed her away, only to pull her close again to his chest, after having wrapped the two sides of his jacket around both of them as best as he could. It wasn't perfect, but it kept the cold draft on her back at bay.

Realizing that the ringing in her ears had gotten less intense, she started to enjoy the sound of the heavy rain. Hearing the drops drum against roof and windows had always had a relaxing effect on her. Paired with the feeling of safety that Oliver's embrace had on her and the exhaustion that was left after the last adrenaline had fully dissipated, she was quickly lulled into a dreamless slumber.

* * *

Having cleared the upper three floors quickly, Diggle watched the surrounding alleys from the top floor for a while. The two policemen they had encountered earlier were making slow progress in the darkness; he could see their flash lights dancing. They had probably been instructed to check all dumpsters for fire accelerants or other clues as to why the warehouse might have gone up in flames. Once the fire was out, they would find bodies and a meth lab in the basement, which would hopefully lead to the conclusion that it was all an accident caused by a bunch of particularly stupid drug dealers.

While he was exploring, John had kept an eye out for alternative escape routes, but couldn't find any. The building was already gutted for demolition, and there were no fire escapes on the upper floors and no back exit. Of course there were windows to the back, but they only led into a courtyard, flanked by other buildings. So he resolved that they would just have to stay for a while – he didn't really mind to give his lungs a bit of a rest and he knew Felicity's ankle definitely needed a break from limping through the darkness. He could tell that she was in pain, but whenever he had turned around to make sure she was alright, she had smiled at him reassuringly. He should know better by now than to be surprised by her bravery.

After a couple of minutes he made his way back downstairs, carefully paying attention to each step in the darkness, as the stairwells had already been dismantled as well, and there were no banister rails. Back in the main entrance hall, he was surprised to find Felicity and Oliver huddled closely together against a pillar, the woman seemingly asleep. He had to smile to himself at the picture and his heart went out to his two partners, who were just as important as family to him; by a stroke of luck they had all made it out of the fire alive, and he was immensely grateful for it.

His eyes had gotten used to the darkness by now and he could tell that Oliver was still awake, and looking at him. Pointing to his eyes first and then upwards, Diggle signaled to his partner that he was going to keep watch from one of the upper floor windows. He was relieved to see Oliver nod ever so slightly, and he knew he had his friend back. The younger man had lost himself earlier – but he had also found himself again, thanks to the woman he held in his arms. John hoped that the fire had not only scared Oliver but that it had also burned down some of the walls he had constructed around his heart.

_**AN: Thanks for reading - short chapter this time, but the next (and final) one to follow soon, hopefully by the middle of next week! Leave a review, pretty please!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Against my promise, this wasn't exactly a quick update. Sorry about that! Real life got in the way with 16-hour days and no time for writing, unfortunately.**_

_**But finally, here we go, the final chapter. Thanks for all the follows, favorites and reviews, they make me very happy :)  
**_

_**The second half of the chapter is quite conversation-heavy. Not sure it works… Let me know if you think it's OOC. Still, I believe that almost losing Felicity would change Oliver's stance, so hopefully his character develops out of this in a way that you think believable.**_

_**Thanks for reading! **_

**Fire – Chapter 4**

What brought him back was the loss of her touch. He had completely abandoned himself in it, but the moment her fingers slipped through his and the bond was broken, it hit him, hard; and he was violently jerked back into reality.

He was sitting on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, leaned against a pillar – he couldn't even remember, really, how he got there. Everything was a blur but the violence and roaring devastation of the explosion. That was the last thing he could remember with any kind of clarity and he'd always remember it as the moment he understood how exactly it felt when your heart broke, when you lost all hope. It didn't last more than a second, still he could've written volumes about that feeling, that utter desolation. It was the kind of feeling that changed people.

Felicity was standing close by, looking down on him with an unreadable look. The only emotion he could detect with any degree of certainty was confusion. She was keeping her weight off her injured ankle and had her arms wrapped around her hurting ribs. All of a sudden he became aware of her physical pain and he was ashamed. Ashamed that he had indulged himself, allowed himself to give in to his vulnerability when he should've taken care of her. She had barely escaped with her life, and there he was, willingly handing himself over to his own, emotional pain. Ashamed, at the same time, to be relieved to see she was in physical pain; not that he would ever want that for her – he'd always do whatever he could to keep her safe from bodily harm. But in this particular situation, her pain made it real. He knew that this living, breathing Felicity was not a figment of his imagination, because his subconscious would've never created this image of her. If he had dreamed her up, she would've been physically unscathed.

His train of thought was interrupted by her moving closer, sliding down with her back to the pillar next to him. There was just about a hand's width between them, but it was too much to bear for Oliver. He would let himself be weak for just a while longer, until he had himself fully convinced that he wasn't going to lose her. At least not tonight. With this concession to his own fear, he lifted her legs across his and pulled her in closely. Upon noticing that she was shivering from shock and the cold night air, he opened his jacket and enveloped her in his arms, the weight on his chest getting a bit lighter with every breath she took.

He kept telling himself over and over that he was not going to lose her – he had just glimpsed down into that abyss and he had never been so scared in his life. He would need some time to get over that. But he'd never be able to forget (and maybe he shouldn't, he thought to himself).

* * *

When she woke up, she felt cold and her whole body hurt. It was still pitch black all around her, so she couldn't have slept for too long. Oliver was gone, only his leather jacket remained around her shoulders; it took her a while to get her bearings, her mind still hazy from a fitful and troubled sleep. Once her eyes had adjusted, she could detect his silhouette against the nearest broken window, where he looked out over the surrounding area. His body was tense and alert; he looked very much like the Arrow she knew. Wherever he was lost earlier, he had found himself again.

It was probably the sounds of her stirring that made him turn around and look at her, a doleful smile on his lips. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, his body erupted in a coughing fit. Only now did she realize that the ringing in her ears had stopped and that her hearing was back. She cringed at having to hear how his lungs desperately fought for air. Once he had recovered, he sent a simple "Hey" her way. His voice was mostly gone – what was left sounded strange, raw and rough, barely more than a whisper. Still, it was laced with emotion, she just couldn't put a name to what exactly these emotions were.

"Hey," she replied, still a bit disoriented from waking up in the middle of the night on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. "How are you?" "Fine." There it was; the old Arrow mask was firmly back in place, all his walls rebuilt while she had slept. As usual, he would ignore whatever happened, refusing to talk about anything to do with his time on the island. Felicity grabbed onto the pillar and got up, slowly. Putting weight on her ankle didn't feel as bad as it had before, so she figured the sprain wasn't that bad. Still, her ribs made her face contort in pain. She began to cross the dark distance between them, making her way over to where he stood, leaned against the window. "We need to leave, it's getting light. I'll go upstairs and tell Diggle," Oliver informed her, his tone flat and in complete contradiction to the plethora of emotions flashing across his face.

Resolving to push him to open up at least a little bit, she asked him gently, "Don't do that, Oliver. Don't shut down. Tell me how you are really feeling. Something happened last night. Did you have a flashback to Lian Yu?" She had read that post-traumatic stress frequently manifested in violent flashbacks – even years after the actual trauma. "I'm really fine." He tried to smile convincingly but failed miserably. She nodded sadly, accepting that no one would ever make Oliver talk about his feelings if he didn't want to (which he rarely (or ever) did). Turning around, she found her way back to the pillar in the dark to pick up her broken tablet lying on the floor. He spoke again and she almost missed his next words, as they were even quieter than before. "I'm alright now, but I wasn't earlier."

She didn't reply in fear of spooking him. "I told you that during those five years on the island, nothing good ever happened. It was hell." Felicity nodded, remembering that particular conversation. "Last night…. the fire," Oliver's voice got stuck in his throat; he was struggling to open up to her. She appreciated the effort all the more, knowing how rare those moments were. "This was the worst I've ever felt – including those five years I was on the island." Felicity looked at him quizzically. She didn't understand what he was saying, so she ignored the little voice inside that admonished her to not interrupt and risk him shutting down again. "So the flashback was even worse than the thing that it reminded you of?"

* * *

Oliver realized that she still hadn't got it. She hadn't understood yet that the worst thing that could ever happen to him was losing _her_. "It didn't remind me of something that actually happened; it reminded me of something that I see happening in my nightmares, something I've always been afraid of happening in the future. And last night I believed for a few moments that I… that we had almost lost you. And all because of the Arrow."

* * *

She was surprised – and not, all at the same time. Oliver's guilt had been her constant companion since she found out he was the vigilante all those months ago. She knew he felt an obligation to keep her safe and never would forgive himself if he didn't manage to do that. Yet, to hear him say that something happening to her was his worst nightmare caught her off guard. Her subconscious had picked up on the way he had corrected his words from "I" to "we" (presumably including John), but her conscious would not let her dwell on that, forcing her to protect her heart. Her walls were by no means as insurmountable as Oliver's, but they were there nevertheless.

"We can't do this anymore. Diggle had his doubts in the beginning, he said it would be too dangerous, but I was selfish, I promised him we'd be able to keep you safe." He had held her gaze, but now turned away, looking out of the window again. She thought she saw a tear running down his cheek. But it was too dark in the warehouse to be sure, so she suppressed this familiar feeling bubbling up in her gut, the one she had refused to label for months now. Instead she prepared to have the same old conversation _again._

"Oliver, if you think long and hard I'm sure you'll find a way to blame yourself for global warming as well."

He still didn't turn to look at her. "What's that supposed to mean?" Exasperated that Oliver would have her spell it out (because – seriously – couldn't he see it?), she elaborated, "It means that people die. Every day. From lots of different things. Bad things happen. Those girls… the ones that the human traffickers we were after today sell like property… they got kidnapped on their way home from school or a friend's place, they haven't been involved with the Arrow. People get diagnosed with cancer in their twenties. My cousin was 16, just had her driver's license for three days when she was killed in a car accident. Drunk driver forced her off the road. My great-grandfather choked to death on a pea, for God's sake." Her voice was getting louder, willing him to understand.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with it! People die every day, Oliver. I could be run over by a bus tomorrow on my way to work. There are no guarantees, life is dangerous and it mostly hurts one way or another so would you please stop blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong in this world! I'm fine. We're all fine. Can't we just file this away like we did with other missions before, and keep moving on?"

Her nonchalance in the face of a near-death experience drove him up the walls and he also raised his voice, as much as his hoarse throat and hurting lungs would allow. "Move on? Just like that? Felicity, I thought YOU HAD DIED!" His raspy voice gave in halfway through the exclamation, and the words he meant to emphasize were barely a whisper. "There would be no moving on from that." The sheer emotion of this statement made shivers run up her spine; now she was sure that there were tears running down his cheeks, leaving light trails where they washed away the soot left by fire and smoke. Her heart went out to the man she loved, who looked so broken; she felt that this was her last chance to convince him to let go of the responsibility he felt for everyone's well-being – something that would ultimately crush him under its weight.

"One of us is going to die and the other one will have to deal with it. That's just the way it works. Unless we both die simultaneously in the same car accident. Or in another explosion…" Oliver's eyes grew wide and she brought her babbling to a screeching halt, "… which is highly unlikely and totally beside the point."

Felicity gathered her thoughts for a couple of seconds to ensure her next words were well chosen. The silence between them was pregnant with everything that had remained unsaid for so long. "Oliver, you better than anyone should know that life is full of hurt. We can only try to make as many good memories as possible, so that in the end they cancel out the heartbreak. And it always ends with someone dying. You, more than anyone, deserve happiness to cancel out what you've gone through in the past. Yet you somehow insist on being miserable, on not deserving anything good. Don't dwell on what awful things could've happened. Just be happy that they didn't."

That's what she had resolved quite some time ago, around the third or fourth time she had watched Oliver fight for his life. She had been sitting there, at his side, watching the heart monitor, listening to the beeping like it was the only thing left in this world that mattered, and she had resolved that she wouldn't let this make her afraid for the rest of her days. He would make it through this, and she would simply be happy that he had, not dwelling on the what-ifs.

* * *

Felicity's way of looking at the world still had Oliver in awe. It made complete sense to him, yet he had no idea how to get over all those worst-case scenarios that kept running through his mind, in every waking minute. They were a form of self-protection. If he let go of them, there would be hope for the future. Hope that something other than the worst case would come to pass. And if he knew one thing, it was that hope was the most painful of all emotions, because it was so easily crushed. He had kept Felicity at arm's length because she symbolized hope for him like nothing else. Hope that things might change for him one day.

"Everything I touch turns to dust. I could never taint you with that kind of darkness." "Listen to you, being all melodramatic," she mocked him and even managed to draw the tiniest of smiles from his lips. "It's not darkness, Oliver, it's just the past. And what's particular about the past is that it's, well… in the past! You can always, _always_, turn the leaf over and decide that things are going to be different from now on out. That darkness is something you have chosen, it's not something that belongs to you. It's not a fundamental part of who you are."

Oliver wanted nothing more than to believe Felicity. But years of always preparing for the worst could not be swept away in a heartbeat. Years of being afraid could not be alleviated even by the gentlest of touches. "I want to try, Felicity. But I don't know how." Oliver turned away from looking out of the window back towards her. He was surprised to see that she had approached without him noticing; she was just an arm's length away from him now. "Will you help me?" The lump in her throat prevented her from answering, but she nodded and even managed a small smile.

When he drew her into a hug, he relished the warm feeling that spread across his chest and reminded him that she was there with him, now. It would be a constant struggle to suppress the what-ifs, but Felicity had always had a knack for setting him straight. If anyone could manage, she could.

* * *

Surprise was not a strong enough word for the feeling spreading through Felicity when Oliver gently drew her into an embrace. He had _never_ initiated a hug with her, and the handful of times that she had hugged him, she had always felt like he was just tolerating – rather than reciprocating – her physical and emotional closeness. But this time was different. He had both arms firmly wrapped around her, one completely encircling her small waist, with the hand resting on her hip, the other hand firmly placed between her shoulder blades. There was no hesitation, no uncertainty in this embrace. There was neither insecurity nor inhibition; it was everything he had to give, and she felt it all at once. It was overwhelming.

His head was buried in her neck and she had to actively remind her lungs to draw the next breath and the one after that when she felt his lips softly touch the skin at the spot where her shoulder curved upwards. At first it was almost impalpable, and she thought she had imagined it. But his lips connected with her skin again and this time there was no denying it. When she felt his lips starting to kiss a soft trail up the side of her neck to a spot just under her ear, she could virtually feel a raw need radiating off of him. It took everything she had to place her hands against his chest and push him softly away. She wanted Oliver's kiss more than anything, but she didn't want it to be born out of negative feelings.

Rarely had she been this confused; her eyes sought out his – but she could detect neither fear nor loss in them. He looked at her, his gaze unguarded. If she didn't know any better, she would've said it was hope. But Oliver Queen didn't do 'hope', that much she had learned over the last couple of months. Yet…

His eyes were dry now, but the light traces of where his tears had run down his dirt-stained cheeks were undeniable. Throwing all caution to the wind, she placed her hands at both sides of his face and ran her thumbs over the soft skin underneath his eyes, her gaze never breaking his. If this really was hope, she needed to take this spark and breathe life into it, turn it into a fire.

A blink of an eye later, she felt his lips, warm and sure against hers; one hand had wandered to her shoulder, the other to the back of her head, where his fingers got entangled with her hair. As she opened her lips for him, her eyes fluttered closed.

The End

_**AN: Thanks everyone for joining me on this angsty ride – pleasepleaseplease leave a review!**_


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